First year with game: What's the best settings for the most realistic MLB game?

tellitB · 04-22-2019, 07:42 PM

I know we can go pretty in-depth with the settings and control ratings, aging, etc.

What are the most ideal settings for the most realistic MLB experience? I want my OOTP 20 to play as much as real life as possible.

BIG17EASY · 04-22-2019, 08:11 PM

Opinions on a few things may vary, but if you're a relative newbie to the game, just take the MLB Quickstart and don't touch a thing. Pick your team and have at it.

MrBojangles · 04-22-2019, 08:19 PM

I have saved games from 1871, 1922, 1950 and 2015 abs OOTP automatically adjusts settings for each to represent the game at that time.

Clavette · 04-22-2019, 09:47 PM

I would do what big17easy said, except on commissioner mode. There may be a few small details you would like to change to better enjoy your gameplay

NoOne · 04-22-2019, 10:18 PM

trust OotP's research over the human eye and perceptions... i still stick to 'normal' injuries instead of what they list as realistic (i.e. a higher rate).

change 1 or 2 things at a time, if you have hankering for something. smooth out any customization before further customizations are started.

some stuff doesn't require further tweaking and adjustments, but a lot of it does. it's especially difficult to customize something when you don't have any familiarity with how it works or how it will influence other parts of the game.

changing injuries isn't such a big deal, but using MiL roster roles, or fiddling with economics of the game can get messy.

defaults are awesome, and changing the more superficial and asthetic stuff is simple too, out-of-the-box.

anecdotal -- i tried to do too much the first league i created. i'm a detail-orientated person with strong opinions of what i want, lol. I'm a fairly organized person and think things through before i do them... I was so frustrated that i set it down for 6 months before i played OotP again.

when i got back, i just did an mlb league and dinked around with it for 10-20 seasons (i don't play many games out back then, none now). changed a few things here and there as i experimented. just with that cursory knowledge, my second attempt at a league customized to my preferences went much better. Still took another 2-3 years before i had it refined to what i play now. not that it wasn't playable initially on this 2nd attempt. i still change some things in regards to baseline stats each year or a setting here and there, but for the most part it's the 'same' league creation.

Dyzalot · 04-23-2019, 02:56 PM

I've been playing this game for about ten years now and I mostly play modern MLB saves. I don't change much from the defaults as like NoOne said, I trust all the time and energy that OOTP developers have put into balancing the game as well as possible. It seems to be fairly accepted among statisticians such as Nate Silver and his website as well as MLB and others so as to be used by them to sim possible futures and talk about them in print in major publications or on major networks like ESPN. Given all of that, here are the few things I do adjust from what is default "out of the box" for a MLB quick start.

1. I change injuries to "high - MLB realistic" but also switch them to "low" for the period from Sep 1st until the end of the World Series.

2. I change lineups to be sabremetric and I change the AI evaluation settings so that ratings are 60% and current year stats are 25% (very small tweak that likely does very little)

3. Depending upon my goals, I'll turn off or on certain league development options. (Note that leaving this on can make your league evolve in a way so as to produce "unrealistic" MLB results.)

4. In this last save I started, I changed the global "how quick is the hook" for relievers to faster than average as opposed to the default which is slower than average because for the life of me, I have a hard time believing that current MLB managers leave relievers in games longer than the historical average. I have no statistical evaluation to back up this adjustment though. It seems purely intuitive to me without some explanation from the devs and so far in my newest save, I can't say that I've noticed any major differences.

And that's pretty much it. I certainly have things that look "off" to my eye when playing the game but I also understand how easy it is to be wrong about a statistic when you are only doing it "by eye". Some will agree with me on these boards and some will swear that you have to make this change and that change before it produces MLB results that "look right" to them. I happen to think that a lot of it is just messing with things at the margins and then we see things in the game that confirm our preconceived notion that this certain tweak was needed. Either way, everyone has their own preferred settings to produce the results they are looking for so don't take mine as "canon" or anything.

Cactusguy21 · 04-23-2019, 04:46 PM

One thing you need to do is add the real-life service time restrictions on the minor leagues, I have no freaking idea why that isn't a default, but if left unchecked, your minors become a glorified indy ball where a bunch of thirty-somethings kill your prospects.

Other than that, maybe bump up the trading difficulty from the default, and you should be good to go.

Dyzalot · 04-23-2019, 05:01 PM

Yup, forgot to add that I bump up trade difficulty to "Hard" & "Favor Prospects" and didn't know about the minors service time thing but have definitely seen lots of aging veterans in my minors so may need to try that as well.

NoOne · 04-23-2019, 07:59 PM

be careful with those RL roster restrictions. you can cause a glut or a famine of players at various levels. i think that's why they don't do it. it can get very complicated, quickly.

that said i do use roster rules for my minors. but, i don't have teams with different # of affiliates at any level, and i don't have teams with 4-5 rookie league teams.

this is maybe old info, but best i coudl find:

https://www.thecubreporter.com/book/export/html/3562

also a ootp post:

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...87&postcount=2
by biggio.

at 3 years allowed for rookie (in game would be "2" for the limit) and a 39 player draft, you will ahve ~120 players. you'd probably be fine with those rules, actually.

funny that the lowest rungs allow 4 years. i think this is very old information, though.

you can't recreate the other rules exactly.

i'd suggest sticking to service time limits at Rookie and maybe Short A, but then shift to Age restrictions at A-AA-AAA. i have less bottlenecks and pooling of players doing it this way. make sure ~10 players each year cna move freely without adhering to rules. you don't want everyone stuck waiting only for service time to be promoted. the bulk will follow it, but you want hte best prospects to be able to freely move up the chain.

if you do make rules for the MiL, you want to test them out before using them. if you see pooling of players at a level, you can adjust some things to shift them up or down etc... if a level isn't getting enouhg players, you need to expand who can play there or reduce window of playing time at the level above/below etc... you'll want to focus on the 1 team with the most affiliates at any level.

tellitB · 04-23-2019, 08:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cactusguy21

One thing you need to do is add the real-life service time restrictions on the minor leagues, I have no freaking idea why that isn't a default, but if left unchecked, your minors become a glorified indy ball where a bunch of thirty-somethings kill your prospects.

Other than that, maybe bump up the trading difficulty from the default, and you should be good to go.

Where is the real-life service time restrictions? I cannot seem to find it.

NoOne · 04-24-2019, 06:14 PM

it's tough to find up-to-date information on that with a cursory google search.. probably need to look up each individual leauge as oposed to generic "rookie leauge" search term.

if you mean in the game, you have to change the league in the dropdown selection... select your rookie league under the League settings- Options? or Rules tab? only a few choices, if i got the label wrong. you'll see max service time and age rules etc....

you might find some other insteresting settings by changing from MLB to minor leagues on other settings pages too... it's a bit sneaky that way when youfirst get used to the settings... always look for an 'available actions' button too.

04-22-2019, 07:42 PM	#1
tellitB Minors (Single A) Join Date: Feb 2019 Posts: 59	First year with game: What's the best settings for the most realistic MLB game? I know we can go pretty in-depth with the settings and control ratings, aging, etc. What are the most ideal settings for the most realistic MLB experience? I want my OOTP 20 to play as much as real life as possible.

04-22-2019, 10:18 PM	#5
NoOne Banned Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 7,273 Infractions: 0/1 (3)	trust OotP's research over the human eye and perceptions... i still stick to 'normal' injuries instead of what they list as realistic (i.e. a higher rate). change 1 or 2 things at a time, if you have hankering for something. smooth out any customization before further customizations are started. some stuff doesn't require further tweaking and adjustments, but a lot of it does. it's especially difficult to customize something when you don't have any familiarity with how it works or how it will influence other parts of the game. changing injuries isn't such a big deal, but using MiL roster roles, or fiddling with economics of the game can get messy. defaults are awesome, and changing the more superficial and asthetic stuff is simple too, out-of-the-box. anecdotal -- i tried to do too much the first league i created. i'm a detail-orientated person with strong opinions of what i want, lol. I'm a fairly organized person and think things through before i do them... I was so frustrated that i set it down for 6 months before i played OotP again. when i got back, i just did an mlb league and dinked around with it for 10-20 seasons (i don't play many games out back then, none now). changed a few things here and there as i experimented. just with that cursory knowledge, my second attempt at a league customized to my preferences went much better. Still took another 2-3 years before i had it refined to what i play now. not that it wasn't playable initially on this 2nd attempt. i still change some things in regards to baseline stats each year or a setting here and there, but for the most part it's the 'same' league creation. Last edited by NoOne; 04-22-2019 at 10:20 PM.

04-23-2019, 02:56 PM	#6
Dyzalot All Star Starter Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 1,735	I've been playing this game for about ten years now and I mostly play modern MLB saves. I don't change much from the defaults as like NoOne said, I trust all the time and energy that OOTP developers have put into balancing the game as well as possible. It seems to be fairly accepted among statisticians such as Nate Silver and his website as well as MLB and others so as to be used by them to sim possible futures and talk about them in print in major publications or on major networks like ESPN. Given all of that, here are the few things I do adjust from what is default "out of the box" for a MLB quick start. 1. I change injuries to "high - MLB realistic" but also switch them to "low" for the period from Sep 1st until the end of the World Series. 2. I change lineups to be sabremetric and I change the AI evaluation settings so that ratings are 60% and current year stats are 25% (very small tweak that likely does very little) 3. Depending upon my goals, I'll turn off or on certain league development options. (Note that leaving this on can make your league evolve in a way so as to produce "unrealistic" MLB results.) 4. In this last save I started, I changed the global "how quick is the hook" for relievers to faster than average as opposed to the default which is slower than average because for the life of me, I have a hard time believing that current MLB managers leave relievers in games longer than the historical average. I have no statistical evaluation to back up this adjustment though. It seems purely intuitive to me without some explanation from the devs and so far in my newest save, I can't say that I've noticed any major differences. And that's pretty much it. I certainly have things that look "off" to my eye when playing the game but I also understand how easy it is to be wrong about a statistic when you are only doing it "by eye". Some will agree with me on these boards and some will swear that you have to make this change and that change before it produces MLB results that "look right" to them. I happen to think that a lot of it is just messing with things at the margins and then we see things in the game that confirm our preconceived notion that this certain tweak was needed. Either way, everyone has their own preferred settings to produce the results they are looking for so don't take mine as "canon" or anything. Last edited by Dyzalot; 04-23-2019 at 02:58 PM.

04-23-2019, 07:59 PM	#9
NoOne Banned Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 7,273 Infractions: 0/1 (3)	be careful with those RL roster restrictions. you can cause a glut or a famine of players at various levels. i think that's why they don't do it. it can get very complicated, quickly. that said i do use roster rules for my minors. but, i don't have teams with different # of affiliates at any level, and i don't have teams with 4-5 rookie league teams. this is maybe old info, but best i coudl find: https://www.thecubreporter.com/book/export/html/3562 also a ootp post: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...87&postcount=2 by biggio. at 3 years allowed for rookie (in game would be "2" for the limit) and a 39 player draft, you will ahve ~120 players. you'd probably be fine with those rules, actually. funny that the lowest rungs allow 4 years. i think this is very old information, though. you can't recreate the other rules exactly. i'd suggest sticking to service time limits at Rookie and maybe Short A, but then shift to Age restrictions at A-AA-AAA. i have less bottlenecks and pooling of players doing it this way. make sure ~10 players each year cna move freely without adhering to rules. you don't want everyone stuck waiting only for service time to be promoted. the bulk will follow it, but you want hte best prospects to be able to freely move up the chain. if you do make rules for the MiL, you want to test them out before using them. if you see pooling of players at a level, you can adjust some things to shift them up or down etc... if a level isn't getting enouhg players, you need to expand who can play there or reduce window of playing time at the level above/below etc... you'll want to focus on the 1 team with the most affiliates at any level. Last edited by NoOne; 04-23-2019 at 08:01 PM.

04-24-2019, 06:14 PM	#11
NoOne Banned Join Date: Apr 2015 Posts: 7,273 Infractions: 0/1 (3)	it's tough to find up-to-date information on that with a cursory google search.. probably need to look up each individual leauge as oposed to generic "rookie leauge" search term. if you mean in the game, you have to change the league in the dropdown selection... select your rookie league under the League settings- Options? or Rules tab? only a few choices, if i got the label wrong. you'll see max service time and age rules etc.... you might find some other insteresting settings by changing from MLB to minor leagues on other settings pages too... it's a bit sneaky that way when youfirst get used to the settings... always look for an 'available actions' button too. Last edited by NoOne; 04-24-2019 at 06:15 PM.

04-22-2019, 08:11 PM	#2
BIG17EASY Hall Of Famer Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 3,291	Opinions on a few things may vary, but if you're a relative newbie to the game, just take the MLB Quickstart and don't touch a thing. Pick your team and have at it.

04-22-2019, 08:19 PM	#3
MrBojangles All Star Reserve Join Date: Apr 2016 Location: low and inside Posts: 568	I have saved games from 1871, 1922, 1950 and 2015 abs OOTP automatically adjusts settings for each to represent the game at that time.

04-22-2019, 09:47 PM	#4
Clavette Major Leagues Join Date: Mar 2018 Location: Connecticut Posts: 371	I would do what big17easy said, except on commissioner mode. There may be a few small details you would like to change to better enjoy your gameplay

04-23-2019, 04:46 PM	#7
Cactusguy21 Major Leagues Join Date: Jun 2018 Posts: 332	One thing you need to do is add the real-life service time restrictions on the minor leagues, I have no freaking idea why that isn't a default, but if left unchecked, your minors become a glorified indy ball where a bunch of thirty-somethings kill your prospects. Other than that, maybe bump up the trading difficulty from the default, and you should be good to go.

04-23-2019, 05:01 PM	#8
Dyzalot All Star Starter Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 1,735	Yup, forgot to add that I bump up trade difficulty to "Hard" & "Favor Prospects" and didn't know about the minors service time thing but have definitely seen lots of aging veterans in my minors so may need to try that as well.